Keith "Guru" Elam

Keith “Guru” Elam (1966-2010), musician. Elam was born in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, the son of a judge and the co-director of the public school library system. He earned a degree in business administration from Morehouse College and also took courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology before deciding to pursue a career in music. He began rapping under the name MC Keithy E but quickly changed it to Guru, short for “Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal.” In 1987 he and a young producer named Christopher “DJ Premier” Martin founded the group Gang Starr, which released its debut album No More Mr. Nice Guy two years later. The duo became some of the first artists to combine hip hop and jazz elements; for example, their single “Manifest” included a sample from Dizzy Gillespie’s classic standard “A Night in Tunisia,” and a track entitled “Jazz Thing” was featured in Spike Lee’s 1990 film Mo’ Better Blues. Gang Starr went on to release four more critically acclaimed albums during the next decade: No More Mr. Nice Guy (1990), Daily Operation (1992), Hard to Earn (1994), and Moment of Truth (1998). Although many rap artists were criticized for violent, misogynistic or materialistic lyrics, Guru’s socially conscious rhymes earned him respect and acclaim. As one scholar of hip hop has written, “They just had that kind of an impact where anyone who ever heard them could never really think about approaching a song the same way after that, and that’s the sign of a truly legendary, groundbreaking group.’’ Using his trademark monotone style, he frequently commented on racism, black-on-black crime, sexism, racial pride, the black family, and other issues within the black community. On his song “Robin Hood Theory,” for example, he declared “If I wasn’t kicking rhymes, I’d be kicking in doors/Creating social justice and defending the poor,” while on “2 Deep” he declared “Unite or perish is the message that I cherish/That goes for my people of all religions/If we’re all black why have so many divisions?/Superficial divisions are tearing us apart/Don’t let it happen, let’s put some respect back in.” Despite the group’s refusal to create a more commercialized sound that would sell more records, Moment of Truth and a 1999 greatest hits compilation were both certified gold for more than 500,000 copies sold.

Guru also made guest appearances on songs by many other artists and mentored younger rappers such Jeru the Damaja and Bahamadia, while his lyrics and fusion of diverse musical styles helped to influence other socially conscious artists like Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Kendrick Lamar. Guru’s interest in jazz also resulted in the 1993 solo album Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1, which featured him rapping over beats provided by musicians such as Donald Byrd, Roy Ayers, and N’Dea Davenport. The album’s success led to three other volumes in the Jazzmatazz series in 1995, 2000 and 2007, featuring collaborators such as Branford Marsalis, Chaka Khan, Bob James and Ronnie Laws. Georgia rapper Killer Mike later recalled the influence that these albums had on him in his tribute song “Guru Salute,” saying “Who’d of thought a country boy from deep in Atlanta, brah/Would be so affected by Jeru the Damaja/And by Guru, and by Primo/A half a million kids across the country to Chino/Learned about jazz ‘cause of Jazzmatazz/The Sony Walkman was the musical class.”

After the 2003 album The Ownerz, Gang Starr group disbanded due to creative differences. Guru continued his solo career with new producers, releasing two additional albums to mixed reviews and limited success. He and Premier began discussing a reunion, but these plans ended when he went into cardiac arrest and then a coma on February 28, 2010; it was later revealed that he had been suffering from multiple myeloma for several years. He died on April 19 at the age of 43, survived by his parents, wife, and son. Tributes came in from throughout the rap world, including his former partner Premier, who wrote “I will cherish everything we created together as Gang Starr, forever…His rhyme flows were insane, and I will never remove him from my heart and soul.” As time passed and hip hop music entered its fifth decade, Guru’s reputation as one of the all-time greats only grew; for instance, in the first season of the television show Luke Cage, all sixteen episodes were named after Gang Starr songs. In 2019 Premier took thirty unreleased Guru recordings, some only a few seconds long, and molded them into complete songs with new beats (including an appearance by Guru’s son) to create Gang Starr’s final album One of the Best Yet.

©David Brodnax, Sr.